'Thoroughly disgusted' Allen West slams Alan Grayson's Klan-themed fundraising email

Brett T. | 5:31 PM on October 22, 2013

Plenty were repulsed by Rep. Alan Grayson’s fundraising email featuring a flaming cross forming the “T” in Tea Party. In the face of criticism, though, Grayson doubled down, insisting in a statement that “the Tea Party is the home of bigotry and discrimination today.” Like many others, Allen West wasn’t about to let that charge go unchallenged.

https://twitter.com/TC_HATES_BOATS/status/392733797449338880

@AllenWest and I guess @AlanGrayson would deny that the likes of Robert Byrd, Bull Connor and George Wallace were Democrats…

— Bill Benedict (@billbene) October 22, 2013

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes almost got away with claiming Wallace was a Republican.

West expanded on his thoughts on his website. Here’s just a portion of his response:

I grew up in Atlanta, Ga., and remember the Klan burning crosses atop Stone Mountain. The constitutional conservative grassroots movement known as ‘The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party’ focuses on fiscal spending and government growth issues as well as individual liberty and free market principles. Mr. Grayson should probably crack open a history book, in between his histrionics, and learn that it was the Democrat Party that created the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate black voters. Voters such as those who elected the first black Republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida, Josiah T. Walls. Same party, same tactics, some things just never change.